Robotics competition draws entry by Shallowater and Idalou teams

Thursday

Two area teams are among 41 entered in this weekend's FIRST Robotics competition at the City Bank Coliseum.

The winning team will earn a trip to the national competition April 24-27 in St. Louis, Mo.

FIRST, which stands for For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, was started by well-known inventor Dean Kamen.

The organization's website says its mission "is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders, by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build science, engineering and technology skills, that inspire innovation, and that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication, and leadership."

And this weekend's event is designed to do just that.

Shallowater team

The Shallowater Robotics Team is entering the competition with Wall-E the Robot, said team sponsor Robin Campbell, a teacher at Shallowater Independent School District and manager of the Shallowater branch of the Lubbock Boys and Girls Club after school each day.

Campbell put together a team of 15 students ranging from freshmen to juniors in collaboration with the Shallowater schools.

Every year, teams from around the country are given the challenge to create a robot which has to accomplish certain tasks.

"Last year, the competition was to make the robot shoot a basketball, and this year it is to have the robot fly a frisbee and climb a tower," she said. "Not all the robots do all of that, and our robot will not climb a tower - we couldn't get that much done this year."

She added, "We did get ours to shoot frisbees."

Excellence in the frisbee toss is a part of the qualification rounds.

Idalou team

The FIRST Robotics team from Idalou joined late and has had to work hard to gain support.

A December session hosted at the Science Spectrum in Lubbock was the spark that ignited the idea of the team. But, by December, most of the other teams had enough members and many had experienced participants. The Idalou team had neither.

While the team was able to earn a grant to support their entry into the contest, many obstacles remained for the team. In fact just gathering enough participants for a team took an effort. Then the youth themselves had to go out and raise money and find sponsors.

In the end companies like Teinert Metals, South Plains Electricity Co-Operative, Massey Irrigation, Idalou Co-Op Gin, Bozeman Tire and Idalou Farm Store-Feed did lend their support.

The majority of the team members are from Idalou, but is one participant from Shallowater, one from the Lubbock-Cooper ISD and one from the Frenship ISD.

The team's facilitator, Richard Cook, called the experience exciting for the participants.

"It is not a classroom environment at all," Richard said. "These kids can let their imagination go wild."

Going to the store for screws, springs, hinges and other parts is how Richard described his support for the team. But, he is glad to be a part of the experience.

"It's been one of the highlights of my life," Richard said. "It is unreal; I'm tickled to be a part of it."

Richard said the process wasn't always easy for the team. They would try something, and it wouldn't work, but they would just try something else.

"It is amazing to watch them," Richard said. "They just will not quit."

Richard said the youth on his team have impressed him with their intelligence.

"These kids are sharp," Richard said. "I hate to even call them kids."

The team's captain, Guy Harmon, was brought into the project by a friend.

"I love it," Harmon said. "I like building things and to have a challenge."

The previous experience Harmon had with building was all with wood and metal. Harmon said this was the first thing he has constructed with anything electric.

But Harmon also learned something about leadership.

"I learned it is good to have a strong leader to keep everyone motivated," Harmon said.

The high school junior has set himself a high goal for his life.

"I'd like to make a new discovery in science," Harmon said, "something to revolutionize the world."

The task

Each team is given six weeks to assemble and perfect a robot, then it has to be bagged at anytime up until midnight of the last day of the six weeks.

"We worked until midnight," Shallowater's Campbell remembers of that night.

The same was the case with the Idalou team - Harmon worked with Colton McKinney, Robby Shipley and Lindsey Dunlap.

Like Harmon, the project taught Shipley a lot about electrical wiring. Shipley is a senior who plans to attend Texas A&M next year to study engineering.